Laughter in the interview-laugh-speak and its functions

摘要

Laughter is ubiquitous in daily life, above all, in the interpersonal communication. In this study, we examined the laughter in the experimental interview setting, especially focusing on the occurrence of laugh-speak. The conversations of the interviewer and the subjects were videotaped, then they were precisely transcribed by using conversation analysis notation. On the basis of the transcriptions, the laughing events were identified and analyzed. The results were as follows: 1) the laughter is related to the situation where the people conversed, but not to topic domains; 2) The pattern of laughter was varied in accordance with the dyads; 3) the occurrence rate of laugh-speak to total laughs found to be 50%; 4) Laugh-speak should fulfill the multi-functions as modifier of contents of utterances.